


Once More, with Feeling

by Red



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Canon Disabled Character, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Old Age, Old Mutant Husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 13:32:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3812368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red/pseuds/Red
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been well over a decade since Erik stopped going into season, and for the most part, it had been a welcome gift for his heats to go cold. </p><p>Still, that doesn't mean Charles isn't about to enjoy himself, when Erik storms into the mansion smelling once more of pheromones...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once More, with Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to firstlightofeos and jadieladie for helping edit this. The title and any other remaining mistakes are all, of course, me. :)

Charles overhears the commotion just before noon. 

One minute, everything is calm, or calm as the mansion gets. The next: everyone on the first floor of the mansion starts oscillating between the resigned acceptance that follows Erik’s visits these days and--strangely--the sort of panic they _once_ had, when Erik stormed through the doors, decades ago. 

It’s odd, that’s for certain. Some of the students are even perseverating on the simple fact Erik’s an omega. That’s been old news since the late seventies, when Erik appeared on television demolishing yet another baseball stadium, this time wearing _heavily_ modified body armour (much to Charles’s annoyance, and he’s not liable to ever let Erik forget about That Time You Almost Got Killed Whilst Pregnant With Some Other Alpha’s Kid).

Still. If Charles got excited by every last thing that made Scott start up the defense perimeter, there would be precious little time for anything else. If it is Erik, he’ll make his way up to the office eventually, no matter how many lasers or robots or other school supplies he feels compelled to demolish. 

No use worrying over the fuss, Charles thinks, going back to editing yet another grant proposal. He’s invested well, but every penny counts, particularly when your partner is a supervillain.

Seven minutes later, when Erik bursts through the doors with a wave of pheromones strong enough to knock out an alpha a quarter Charles’s age-- _that’s_ when he starts worrying. 

“Erik?” he asks, because it’s more likely it’s not Erik.

It couldn't possibly be Erik. 

Charles grips at the wheels of his chair, intending to push back but utterly incapable of moving any further, pinned by the oppressive weight of heat-scent. Whatever alien or shapeshifter or clone it is _now_ , this time it is absolutely uncanny. It smells so very like Erik did, years ago--

“Daft fool, of course it’s me,” Erik growls, stomping fully into the room. He doesn’t slam the doors behind him, and that is enough unlike Erik that Charles sees it fit to delve into his mind and just freeze him. 

«I’m forty years too old to be heating on your desk,» he hears in his mind, and it’s immediately followed by a memory pushed forward, the exact complement to his own over-vivid mental record of those days--Erik, his long legs sprawled out, the first heats when he didn’t mind and later when it grated at his back and hips; the way he’d always fumble to brace against the chair; how embarrassingly hungry Charles always looked as he had his first taste of Erik’s slick--and oh god. 

Oh god, it’s Erik.

“But you’re in heat,” Charles blurts, dropping his hold on Erik. He regrets the words almost before he’s spoken, as Erik shoots him a look that generally encompasses how impressed he is, both by his estimation of Charles’s ‘textbook alpha intelligence’ and by his current _situation_. 

“Come,” is all Erik responds with. 

And then he’s sweeping out of the office, dramatically as he’d entered. He storms down the hall, heading toward Charles’s rooms, acting as if it’s a foregone conclusion Charles will follow. 

Charles sighs. What choice does he have?

Even if he _truly_ wanted to protest, he thinks as he does a cursory job of tidying up his papers, he’d find it impossible. Erik’s pheromones aren’t as strong as they once were--not, Charles admits, that Erik ever had an _excessively_ strong scent in the time they’ve known each other, being once-mated already--but there’s still that deep lure of smoke and warmth hooking into him, igniting the old, primal (and yes, textbook alpha) drive to set his claim. 

It’s been well over a decade since Erik stopped going into season. To tell the truth, they both had been relieved by it at the time. Erik’s cycle had always been annoyingly regular one. It would have been a blessing, had his heats fallen in winter or summer break. Or, indeed, at any other time than early November. Inevitably, Erik would be terrorizing presidential (or senatorial or gubernatorial, he was never terribly picky) hopefuls to the last minute; and Charles would have to overhear a whole new class of mutant youth mortified by the arrival of an obviously heat-stricken Magneto. It wasn’t a _secret_ that Professor X and Magneto were bonded, but that’s apparently one thing in theory and quite another in practice, at least if you ask any of the students. 

Not to say they didn’t enjoy themselves most years, but without the pressure of pheromones and the hard-wired drive to get Erik pregnant, sex was certainly a calmer affair. Charles had spent nearly thirty Novembers with Erik stuck on his lap, and when his cycle finally started to go erratic and they got to have a few years being tied up in August or January instead of during bloody election season… Undoubtedly, those were the least contentious heats one could reasonably expect from an omega like Erik. 

It’ll at least be interesting, Charles thinks as he closes his office and goes to follow Erik’s scent up through the halls toward his room, to see what sort of heat _this_ will be. 

\---

Though he’s only there moments after, by the time Charles is in the bedroom, Erik’s already on the bed with little more than an impatient glare. He has also, Charles notes, taken the liberty of digging out the wedge pillows and is sprawled imperiously over them. 

“Quit wasting time,” Erik demands. 

Charles decides he’ll just interpret that in a kinder light than Erik intended. To be fair, had he wanted a grand romance, he wouldn’t have fished an omega out of the ocean in the middle of a Coast Guard raid. But sometimes it’s nice to pretend. 

“I missed you as well, my darling,” he says, shaking off his suit jacket. “But, impatient as you may be, I’ll need to take--”

“I am not waiting another hour,” Erik interrupts. He shifts on the bed, his breath coming out in a sigh. He’s already so uncomfortable, the weight of his need overbearing in Charles’s mind, and Charles feels a pang of sympathy. It’s not as if he _knowingly_ wasted the front half of his heat, the way he always did in Novembers past. This time it’d come on as a surprise, hadn’t it. 

Unbuttoning his waistcoat and shirt, Charles brushes a wave of calm and affection over Erik’s frenzied mind. “My love, I am sorry,” he soothes. Even as he strips down, he’s thinking _should’ve taken the Viagra first, undressed second_. It’s not that much of a time-save, but it’s _something_ when Erik’s this desperate. 

They’ve never been terribly conservative. Even when they were young, they had sex plenty of times outside season. Since Charles found the pills worked for him in ‘98, they’ve almost had more sex _after_ Erik stopped going into heat. He’s never been able to knot Erik like that, but that’s probably just the lack of pheromones. Erik always complained about getting tied up, anyway. 

“Shut up,” Erik grumbles. He shifts again, one hand falling between his thighs, and Charles shoves desperately at his pants. “Charles, please. Just get up here, get up here--”

There’s a small noise as Erik thrusts his fingers, and it’s wet and obscene and Charles can’t get on the bed fast enough. Erik hardly bothers to make room for him, distracted as he is, and Charles presses a hand between Erik's thighs to get his own fingers in. Two slide in, an easy glide into Erik’s _dripping_ hole. 

“Oh, fuck,” Charles groans. Erik pulls out his own fingers, stretching his hand as if he'd gift a cramp. Serves him right, starting without Charles, and Charles considers saying so but all he can focus on is how incredibly wet Erik is right now.

“Erik, you’re… You’re so--” 

Erik snorts, interrupting him. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not forty anymore, most of that’s store-bought.” 

Charles drags his fingers forward, that slow come-here gesture that always would get a gush of slick out of Erik. Softly, Erik groans, and at best he’s _slightly_ more wet. Of course, Charles thinks, of course it’s not like they’re going back in time; an omega won’t be any younger, even if he winds up in an odd last heat. 

And besides, he thinks, sliding his fingers in a little deeper--besides, there’s something undeniably erotic about the thought of Erik preparing for this. Unable to help himself from it, he skims Erik’s memories to see Erik waking this morning drenched in sweat, the disorientating realization of why, pumping lube out over his fingers and fucking himself for hours, waiting for this odd fever to burn out on his own--

“Really,” Charles grumbles, letting his hand relax. Erik curses thrusts back on him immediately, trying to get that pressure back. “You _did_ wait. You would have deprived me of this?”

“Not this old poor-alpha act.” 

“It is not an _act_ ,” he protests, but god. Synthetic lube or not, Erik is so slippery, and slowly getting more so as Charles presses in a third finger. Maybe Erik wants to spend a bit of this heat like they did in the early days after Cuba, just coming on Charles’s hand. But Charles can’t stop thinking about how good it’d be--how good it always was and is--to slide in that wet heat. 

“I’m going to get the pills, we can still do this long as you like, but I--”

“Charles. I said I’m not waiting for that. I do know how difficult it is for you to listen whilst in rut,” he says, ignoring Charles when he scoffs. Reaching one hand up slightly toward where his jacket lies draped, Erik summons forward a small case. “But I hope you’re not yet so senile as to have forgotten about this.”

There’s only one thing it could be, and if Charles is surprised when Erik opens the case to show the syringe inside, it’s only because of how Erik always reacted to this stuff in the past. 

“Where’d you even find that?” he asks, instead of reacting to the fact that Erik is _willingly_ handling the syringe when he always used to glare at anything except one. 

“Ten minutes to work, course it’s still on the market,” Erik says, which _still_ doesn’t answer how an omega who’s unbonded on paper and on several federal most-wanted lists got hold of a bottle of papaverine. Charles decides he doesn’t need to know, and just tries not to show his shock when Erik takes his cock in hand and draws the syringe near with his powers. 

“Let me,” he blurts as the needle hovers close. He isn’t so much worried about Erik getting it wrong. “I don’t mind. Aren’t you, well…” he struggles to find a euphemism for squeamish that wouldn’t make Erik storm off, but before he can, Erik’s just gone for it. He has to spare a hand to actually _inject_ the medication, and the expression he’s making shows how much he enjoys that.

“Wouldn’t it be more concerning if I _enjoyed_ putting hypodermics in you?” Erik asks, and that is a rather valid point. Impatient as Erik is, he’s businesslike, withdrawing the syringe and rid of it in short order. “Besides, your hands were better occupied.” 

Charles had let his rhythm falter completely--understandably so--but now he’s all too aware of how Erik’s tilting his hips, gently pressing back, trying to get Charles to move. 

“Mm,” Charles agrees, thrusting his hand again. “Suppose I was.” Erik’s running one hand lingeringly up and down his side, lighting his nerves all down his chest and stomach. With the other, he just goes for Charles’s cock, working it with the determined practice and knowledge of an omega long-mated. 

Charles tilts his head to kiss Erik’s throat. By now, the urgency of heat seems almost alien to him, the primal drive to mate his omega so novel that he paradoxically finds himself wanting to draw it out and savor it. He slips another finger up into Erik, moaning at the raw little sound Erik makes as he spreads them out. 

The way Erik’s leaning on him makes it hard to see everything. But he can tell by how Erik’s shoulder moves, by the photographic memories he has of how Erik would get him hard, _now he’s rolling his thumb over the head, now he’s playing with the foreskin again, now he’s cupping and just squeezing_ , and that, as much as the sound of Erik’s slick flesh and the rough demanding hand on his chest, makes him groan. 

He keeps fucking Erik, and fucking him, at first nervous they’re rushing this and that these ten minutes--that this entire heat--are going to end far too soon, and then…

Then, when Erik’s _still_ at it, what feels like hours later--he nudges Erik off him a little, to see.

In Erik’s hand, his prick isn’t even half-hard. “Christ,” he mumbles, resting his head heavily on Erik’s shoulder, “has it been ten minutes? Has ten minutes always been this long?” 

Erik nuzzles at him, and Charles can tell he’s trying not to laugh. “Have you not yet learned patience?” he asks. Charles doesn’t even need to dignify that with a response before Erik brushes a kiss against his scalp and continues. 

“I remember it being longer,” Erik says. He pumps Charles’s cock a few more times, firm and steady, before he lets go. The sound that comes out of Charles’s throat isn’t much more than a whine, he’s ashamed to admit. 

He isn’t erect. Erik’s pulling away, kneeling up so he’s not fucking Charles’s hand, so that Charles’s fingers slide free. Has it been ten minutes? What if the injection doesn’t work any longer? What if he’ll still need the pills, is it even safe to take them after the shot? What if they have to wait, would Erik even wait? 

What if, Charles can’t stop thinking, what if he’s going to go find some other alpha? 

“Charles. Stop projecting.” Pressing Charles back, Erik all but shoves him down against the wedge and straddles him. “You do this every heat. Where am I going to find someone else willing to knot an old man?” 

The question is off-script for Erik. He spent every heat since he had Lorna saying at some point, “You do this every heat. I wasn’t the one sleeping with a _beta_ ,” and Charles is so used to his own usual line that he says it anyway. 

“ _Obviously_.” He hurries to add, “You’re majestic, you could have anyone, who wouldn’t want you?” 

Erik glances down at himself, at his scarred and wrinkled body, and Charles grabs tightly at his hips. 

“Don’t leave,” he blurts out, embarrassed but not able to stop when Erik’s smelling this good, and to his relief, Erik’s reaching for his cock again. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Erik murmurs, sitting back, and Charles realizes what he’s intending.

He winces, watching Erik just--well, shove his prick in, soft as it is. Erik moans, clearly as satisfied as he’s _always_ been doing that, tightening and releasing around him. 

“I wish you’d at least _warn_ me.” As a lazy way to get him hard, Charles can acknowledge the efficacy of the action without _approving_ of it. Erik’s pointed out before that his distaste for the act didn’t exist until the day his doctor gave him a (completely unneeded) pamphlet about post-injury alpha sexuality along with his first prescription for the injections. They had spent a few heats before that with Erik riding his orgasms out, content just rippling around Charles’s soft cock. 

At the time, Charles had found that all more than well enough, even heady to think about. How desperate Erik was to be bred by him, that he’d just take him in, whether or not he’d actually get knotted… Well. As much fun as it _had_ been, the minute Charles learned the act was actually called _stuffing_ , he wound up going off it. Coincidentally, it was the same time he started having erections of a consistent quality and duration--and with the papaverine, even being able tie with Erik again--so he chalked it up as a win.

“Hmmm,” Erik says, clearly taking Charles’s concerns to heart. Easy for him, Charles thinks. He could care less what something’s called or what anyone else, Charles seemingly included, thinks of it. He’s just radiating contentment and his _scent_...

And the heat of him, the sloppy wet grip--Charles bites his lip, trying not to broadcast too loudly. Maybe it’s a good thing the sensation’s so distant, he thinks, using his grip on Erik to get him to grind down. Maybe he’d never make it through Erik’s heats alive, otherwise. Erik leans forward heavily, his lube-slick hands bracing against Charles’s chest, and rocks his pelvis carefully, trying to find a position that isn’t complete torment on his knees.

For a while, Erik is just still like that--as still as he’ll _have_ to be, once Charles’s knot flares up--toying with Charles’s nipples while he clenches and relaxes, and Charles gives up on pretending he’s unaffected. 

Erik is relentless, his breathing harsh as he pinches almost punishingly hard at Charles’s chest, his own cock straining between their stomachs. Charles knows better than to spare a hand by now. Erik’s got a massive cock for an omega, and unlike some omegas, he usually does get erect during heat, but none of that has ever made him enjoy having any attention on it when he just wants to be mounted. 

He’s not sure how long it’s been--ten minutes, five, thirty--but soon enough, Charles can’t dig his fingers into Erik’s hips any tighter and he can’t wait for this any longer. If he slips out, it’s not like Erik would be at all shy about just jamming it back in, so he tugs at Erik, urging him into a jarring first thrust. 

“ _Yes_ ,” Erik growls. His arse slaps back down on Charles’s thighs so loudly that Charles flushes even more. He wants it again, he can’t imagine having enough of that sound, can’t imagine getting enough of broadcasting how hard he’s breeding this powerful, disagreeable, perfectly beautiful omega--even _after_ their heats have gone cold. He forces Erik’s hips up and back again, and Erik cries out as loud as he’d ever done, his thoughts all demand, _fuck me, that’s right, harder, fuck me_. Charles wraps his mind over all that frenzy and desire, losing himself in the ferocity of Erik’s emotion, and adjusts his bruising grip on Erik. 

Trying to span Erik’s waist isn’t as feasible as it once was, but it’s still a delight, his fingertips dug into the tight muscles of Erik’s low back. He massages there deeply, wondering if the same reflexes will hold now. Erik sighs again, still thrusting as he shudders, his abdomen spasming as he gushes a little slick. 

“Erik,” Charles says, and that’s all he can say, that’s all that he’s thinking. “Oh, god. _Erik_.” He tips his head back against the cushion, watching with hunger. He’s going to be bruised up, Erik’s hands are clumsy on him, Erik’s cock is just bobbing untended between them--

 _If you’d be a dear_ , he thinks, sending Erik the command. Erik doesn’t complain. He just cups his own balls and prick and pushes them aside enough, shifts on his knees to spread his thighs a bit more, just enough so Charles can _see_. 

His cock is engorged, deep red, and just coated with Erik’s slick. Erik’s wet enough--store-bought or not--that he’s smeared and leaked out all over Charles, all over his pelvis and splattering his upper thighs, and Charles writhes and drags Erik down into another thrust. 

“Please,” Erik begs, and so Charles does it again, slamming Erik down as hard as he dares. Charles realizes he’s on the verge of coming, and another wave of primal, territorial desire hits him. He’s going to fill Erik up, and Erik will love it. He’s always loved it, always loved taking it even when he’s complaining. Charles reads it like a letter worn cotton-soft with time, how deeply Erik needs, how he’s never full enough.

“Please. Please,” Erik’s sobbing, “Damn it, please, I--” 

The first pulse is a shock all the same. He knows when he comes, the warmth flushing all through his body, but his awareness of _ejaculation_ is more second-hand.

But obvious, still--still very obvious, he thinks, as Erik shivers and his cock jumps in his hand, as his mind goes to a brilliant blankness as he rides out his own orgasm, slowly getting filled up with Charles’s seed. 

Too floored to even worry about whether it’ll happen, Charles relaxes and enjoys how good Erik’s body looks when he’s muttering and trying to adjust for a knot. Charles isn’t particularly large as alphas go, but he swells more than enough; Erik’s the only partner he’s had that would (or perhaps could) put up with it. Feeling sufficiently smug, he tugs at Erik again, imperious as ever. 

Erik grumbles something unkind about alpha behavior, but, slowly, he relaxes, as much as he can while Charles is still knotting him. Settling his weight fully on Charles’s chest, Erik makes a low, satisfied mumble of contentment. Charles smiles, enjoying his weight, stroking slow and lingering over the wonderful softness that has finally settled around Erik’s waist. 

He’s still in heat. It even smells like it's building up, Charles notes, nuzzling under Erik’s jaw. His heats were always the kind that came to their pitch five days in, when they were very nearly over. Breathing in Erik’s scent again, Charles sighs, remembering. How sore they’d get, how every time he thought, _he’s going to be the death of me_. How Erik became more and more frantic until he’d just pass out, how he’d try, late in heat, to fuck Charles’s cock the second his knot went down enough for it. 

Sliding one hand down Erik’s arse, he reaches to trace his fingertips over where he’s stretching Erik out, and hums. Stereotypically alpha or not, he loves this, filling Erik up, getting him tied. 

Just because Erik’s heats once lasted five days, that doesn’t guarantee this one will. Erik mutters under his breath, but doesn’t complain much more than that as Charles rubs over taut, slick flesh. 

“Hope you’re still on the pill,” he jokes. 

“You avoided knocking me up for half a century. I’m sure I’ll manage.” 

Charles can’t stop smiling, can’t stop basking in the simple pleasure of being pinned under his mate. He lets it all soak in, every last sensation and pulse of emotion, not taking any of it for granted. 

“Famous last words,” he says, and when Erik grumbles and threatens to leave, well, that’s as sweet and nostalgic as all the rest.


End file.
